


Final Shutdown

by stories11



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stories11/pseuds/stories11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Spine gets into a bad accident.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Shutdown

It hurt. The pain enveloped him, and yet he refused to power down.

Peter VI had shut him off, only to be stopped by The Spine’s screams and writhes in protest. Peter had examined The Spine in great detail, there was no coming back from this. Wires had been severed in several places, and part of the metal crushed inwards. All he wanted to do was end his friend’s suffering, but every time he tried The Spine would beg him not to. At this point all he could was prolong the pain.

Peter VI didn’t know he could dream, that even when his body was off his mind was conscious in a small degree. Only Peter I knew, and the secret had died with him, only Spine knew about the nightmares, unable to shut down, to shut them off.

Peter leaned down down, looking him directly in the dimly lit eyes. “Please. Let me help you, maybe I can fix you, but you have to let me turn you off.”

“Peter,” He pleaded through cracking silicon lips, eyes wide. “Please, no. Anything but that.”

Peter’s hand hovered over The Spine’s chest. “Spine,” he said softly. “I have to, it’s the only way.” His fingers drew closer to his blue matter core.

“Peter, no! I don’t want to be in the dark again.” He cried.

His last words came too late as Peter flipped the switch. “What do you mean in the dark?” Peter asked panickedly. He flipped the switch back and forth repeatedly, hoping for even a spark in the automaton’s core, but it was too late, the silver bot was gone.

Peter cried. His friend, the one who read to him as a child, tucked him into bed, taken him to school every morning, and helped to raise him, what was he now? Dead on the table before him, by his own hand. Gone never to come back.

Peter would never know The Spine was still connected to the house, trapped in an eternal nightmare. That the bot could feel himself crying and shaking and crying in the dark, surrounded by those he had left behind, hearing only the screams of those forgotten.

Rabbit woke up several months, sure he could hear his brother crying, before realizing The Spine was gone and buried in the yard, dead and gone, never to return. He closed his eyes, forcing stasis with a grimace, not knowing he had heard his brother for the last time.


End file.
